


Seasons

by SilenceoftheSolitude



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode: s08e18 Threads, F/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 04:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2096157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceoftheSolitude/pseuds/SilenceoftheSolitude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had taken him nearly twenty years to finally come out of that prison and once again spring forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> Mention of drug addiction, violence and suicidal thoughts - nothing graphic, but still...
> 
> Any comment (positive or negative - especially if constructive criticism) is very much appreciated as it helps me improve.
> 
> Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. No copyright infringement intended.
> 
> The last part is set post "Threads", so spoilers for that episode.
> 
> A big thank you to Kalinysta, my wonderful beta, for her amazing work and support.

 

**1\. Summer Haze**

 

The day was warmer than he remembered ever liking a day to be. He was a Minnesotan boy, he didn't like heat. And he had never liked summer much either. His parents had told him he was the only kid that didn't look forward to summer vacation. He didn't know whether that had been a reprieve or a way to prompt him to like summer. Maybe it had been a way to recognize his uniqueness.

 

Maybe it had just been a passing comment.

 

The first time he had liked his summer vacation he was ten. He had gone to the cabin. He had looked strangely at his father when he had talked about 'the cabin', like there was only one cabin in the lake region in Minnesota. He hadn't been able to understand why it was 'the cabin' until he had been there.

 

Now it was hard to remember why someone should refer to it as anything else.

 

But now he had a hard time remembering anything at all. Jack wasn't even sure it was summer. He had a hazy memory of leaving home and he was sure he remembered the concept of summer and seasons in general; but time was ultimately relative when you spent your days dreaming about things that didn't exist, and things that did exist became so volatile that maybe they ceased to exist too.

 

Like his cabin in Minnesota.

 

Was there really a cabin? Was there really a place called Minnesota? Or had he just made everything up in his mind because he lived in a cell, and he had a lot of holes in his arms, and whenever he got a new one he would dream of something new? Reality and fiction. What were the differences? He was aware he should be answering some questions, yet he didn't because he knew he shouldn't and he didn't remember anyway.

 

But when the time came to get another hole in his arm he did anything to please the men that would give him some more. It was of some comfort that the things he said weren't real, that he still had enough of a grasp on reality to talk about plans and missions that he had made up just then, in his mind, a mixture of an adventure novel and his favorite war movies.

 

He didn't remember getting beaten up, but when he finally woke from that hazy dream in a hospital, at the edge of summer, he saw the scars on his body and the red marks of what he now knew had been heroin injections. He was skinny, frail. But mostly, he was loath to go back home, where his wife would see the ghost of a man he had become.

 

He asked his superiors to lie. To get him an extra week. And because they had left him behind, none of them asked why.

 

He made his way to Minnesota and trashed his bed during the night, but when he went back to Sara it was still summer, and he still hated the heat, but there was no sand in his hair and no dried blood on his body. He was still a little underweight and he sure as hell wasn't mentally stable, but he could lie still in his dreams and smile at his wife even though he felt quite empty inside.

 

He could even remember the name of his son. He could even remember he had a son.

 

He had always hated summer for its aridity.

 

 

**2\. Autumn Teeth**

He was about to embark on a mission when a call came through for him.

 

"I've lost a tooth!"

 

His son sounded so proud.

 

The next week he had killed five men and shot a sixth in front of his son. The kid was covered in blood, motionless. He had a couple of missing teeth.

 

There was no saving that kid, and in all likelihood some years from now, when he was old enough, someone would put a bullet through his head. Because his father was a criminal and there was no way he was getting out of a criminal life when all his other relatives would teach him hatred and revenge, because he had witnessed his father's death.

 

Jack might not have pressed the trigger to get the seventh shot, but he wasn't going to fool himself by trying to deny that he was indeed responsible for the child's future death.

 

When he went home, after being congratulated for another job well done, he saw his son again. His missing tooth was the most painful thing Jack had ever seen.

 

He hated that he could watch his son and imagine Charlie, covered in blood that was not his own, staring at his father's lifeless body. And he could watch his son and be the one that had shot his father, which was ridiculous because Jack was Charlie's father.

 

It was preposterous that he could imagine himself committing suicide in front of his six years old son.

 

He chose to look at the tree behind his son's back and pretend that he hadn't condemned him to death simply by being his father. He chose to stare at the first falling leaves - yellow, orange... red. He saw the blood soaked ground of his house and mowed the lawn until the grass was gone and only the brown soil remained. He chose to wake up early each morning to remove all the red leaves from the ground so he could pretend his son wouldn't experience his father's death in his dreams.

 

He had been sure somewhere along the line he would have forgotten that the nightmares were his. He had never quite managed to be right.

 

 

**3\. Winter Lethargy**

 

He cradled the gun in his hands. He wanted to move, but the blood wasn't pumping right and it was a heavy gun; he didn't have the strength to lift his hand all the way.

 

His son had found it, though. And he was nine. He had just wanted to play. Kids always found the strength to play. He should know.

 

He turned his head and wasn't sure where he was. His mouth felt dry, pasty, but he hadn't slept and he wasn't sure what time it was. He wasn't sure what day it was. He looked around. There was no water. His head felt dizzy. Where was he?

 

He tried to stand but fell to the ground instead.

 

He scanned as far as his eyes could see, but he couldn't see anything. He felt the sun shining on his skin and he felt the gentle touch of snow on his shaking body, but he couldn't see. He was blind.

 

No, he wasn't. He was just unwilling to see. If he couldn't see then Charlie wasn't going to die. If he couldn't see then Charlie was going to open up the door to Jack's room and jump on the bed to wake his parents a little too early on Christmas day.

 

But Jack wasn't at home. He had found his things in the garage and had picked them up without saying his goodbyes to Sara. The message on her part had been clear enough. Mike had seen him out and Jack had just looked as stony as always. He wasn't going to come back. He might as well make Mike and Sara hate him and have them suffer a little less for his departure.

 

Jack remembered a spinning ring, a stupid archaeologist and the will to die lifting from his shoulders as a kid with dreadlocks held his lighter in dark-skinned hands with wide-eyed awe. But he couldn't remember where he was and what he was doing. He couldn't remember _being_.

 

Anguish. Sorrows. Hope slipping. Giving up. He felt. But he wasn't.

 

He used his hand as leverage to turn around and face the sky, hoping the fog would lift from his eyes. He felt fear take over his body and his breathing became shallower. He started shaking violently and took deep breaths to steady himself.

 

He felt like a ghost who instead of haunting people was haunted by his own memories - a shade of a man that was no longer alive, a man that had died inside too many times to really be alive. Still he could feel himself be alive. As alive as a man unwilling to live could be, anyway.

 

Suddenly his sight was back and he could see again. He could see the bare trees curving under the weight of the snow now resting on their branches. And when he lowered his eyes he could see his body, covered in snow, perfectly still.

 

He turned his head to the side and recognized where he was. Charlie's name stared back at him in capital letters. His date of birth and his date of death.

 

A patch of snow melted on Jack's cheek and for an instant he could pretend that he was actually crying for his lost son.

 

 

**4\. Springing Forward**

 

He had tried to tell himself he had been living again, he had found a balance in his life he was going to base the rest of his days on. He had been kidding himself.

 

The sense of humor he hid behind, used to shield his emotions as he was, wasn't the real Jack; it was an elaborate plan to hide from both himself and those who cared about him, from the lingering pain and the indelible scars in his soul. Because it didn't feel right to have people care about him again when he couldn’t even care about himself. He had distanced himself from Sara because he didn't deserve her love and she didn't deserve his inability to express his pain and feelings for her. She didn't need a statue in her bed.

 

But Daniel was relentless in pushing forward and Teal'c knew him far too well. And Carter had seen the good and the bad and was still able to feel something for him.

 

He had told himself that their proximity had returned Jack O'Neill from a ghost to a living breathing being, but he had been wrong. They had taken him from the edge and put him on the right path, but he had only been able to follow blindly, holding tightly to their hands.

 

It had taken him eight years to realize that to live again he had to want to live again. It had taken him eight years to want to live again. It had taken the death of a man that he had started calling 'Dad' to realize that Jacob Carter had changed and so had Jack O'Neill. And when he had finally been able to see the difference in himself, he had been able to recognize that his need wasn't to change but to embrace something that had already happened.

 

He walked out of the Mountain and felt a slow breeze pass through his hairs, ruffling short strands that were already in disarray. Spring.

 

The sun wasn't as hot as it would be in a couple of months; the light was pleasant on his skin, and it didn't hurt his eyes; he wouldn't need his shades. His skin's natural tan wasn't going to darken, but he felt warmer if not hotter.

 

He smiled at the thought.

 

It was days like these that he regretted having sold his bike. It would be nice to take the old Harley out for a ride, feel the wind blow in his face as his nostrils filled with the scent of motor oil, leather and new growth, maybe break down in the middle of nowhere and sit with his back against the bike and his legs dangling in the closest precipice, waiting for a driver to pass him and ignore him, alone with his thoughts and not a care in the world. Go back to days without Goa'uld, Replicators, alien plants and viruses that threatened the survival of Earth. It'd be great to spend that one afternoon alone, and maybe even stargazing a little, without a telescope, just the naked eye.

 

The next unlikely driver would pass him again, but then he would turn around and offer him his help, and Jack would accept it, because he never forgot he had a life to live in a world that would never stop spinning; he had never been able to forget. Not even what he had convinced himself he had.

 

Instead he took his truck out. He lowered the windows and felt the wind blow in his face. He didn't wear his leather jacket because that scent alone didn't feel right. He didn't refuel the tank though, and he stopped on the side of the road. His legs weren't dangling, but he was laying in the bed of his truck, his right arm acting as a cushion for his head. He nibbled a sandwich, but didn't drink beer. And he forgot about Replicators, alien life forms and Goa'uld, but didn't accidentally forgot to leave his mobile phone home, because he knew he wasn't allowed to, and respected the importance of the role bestowed upon him. And when the first engine sound he heard was that of a bike, he didn't care that it had stopped, and he would have accepted the help too, if help had come.

 

Instead, the rider stopped the bike nearby, and Jack didn't open his eyes, because his hand was already close to the handgun tucked in his trousers. But the rider didn't want to kill him or rob him. She climbed on the truck's bed with him and shared his silence. He didn't need to ask how she had found him, and she wasn't going to tell him either, because that would bring questions about them they didn't want to answer.

 

She had a way of finding him that was uncanny and possibly unhealthy. But it had saved his life a couple of times more than he could recall and it had saved her own life more times than she was comfortable admitting.

 

She laid with him, her head under his shoulder, her arms on her stomach. And he didn't need to ask what had prompted her to do that either, because she always had the strength to find the comfort of his body in her moments of weakness. Strangely enough it wasn't the comfort of two lovers, but that of soldiers on a battlefield; right now wasn't about their feelings for each other; right now was about their lives having taken an abrupt turn and neither of them knowing where that would take them.

 

He wanted to think that their world would be happier, but they had lost so much in this war that still wasn't over even though it was won. They had lost colleagues, friends, family. And they had lost themselves too, a couple of times.

 

Jack wanted to find no fault in this victory, but the truth was it had been a battlefield and it was now a cemetery; entire planets had vanished in this battle, races had been exterminated.

 

Jacob had died.

 

Jack felt sick at the thought. He would have never thought he'd feel a loss so gravely again. This wasn't Daniel dying and coming back and it wasn't like seeing Janet turn the corner while he walked towards the infirmary, it wasn't anywhere near as painful as losing Charlie or Kawalsky, either. But Jacob was important to Jack. Enough that he was grieving for him more than he remembered grieving for his own father.

 

Jacob had been an ass and had thought Jack was an ass in return. Jacob had hated the implications of Jack's feelings for his daughter and had pushed her in his arms on his deathbed. Jacob had hurt Jack to make his daughter realize that she loved him more than she loved a cop he didn't quite like. He had been wicked that way.

 

But Jack had also had Jacob's respect, and he had felt honored by it because he respected Jacob too. A lot. Enough that he was the only Tok'ra he trusted with his life and those of his teammates. And not just Sam's, Daniel's and Teal'c's too. There were maybe two other people in the entire galaxy that he trusted as much, and it gave him thought that those were two fatherly figures too.

 

When he finally opened his eyes it was because Sam was shaking. The breeze had gotten colder and her t-shirt was appropriate for a summer day, more than a spring evening. He noticed that the sky had grown darker and the first stars could be seen shyly illuminating it. He'd gladly spend his night out there, lying motionless with her by his side, but he didn't want her to catch a cold.

 

He got to a sitting position and got rid of his jacket. It was two sizes two large for him, and was at least four for her. Now he could feel the cold breeze too. Just as he was about to slid back down the bed of his truck, she stopped him. She pushed him until his back was resting on the side of the bed of the truck and before his eyes now, if he squinted very hard, he could see the lights of the city. She settled between his legs, with her back against his chest and used his jacket to cover them both.

 

He let her.

 

They fell asleep after hours of silent stargazing in the same position. When the dawn's rays woke him, he couldn't feel his backside and he guessed he was up for a back surgery soon, but he stayed still for a while more, watching her hair and feeling her breathe in his arms. He knew she wasn't far from waking up herself.

 

When she finally woke he squeezed her and placed a feather-light kiss on the top of her head before letting her go. He immediately felt the loss of warmth, but it didn't hurt because she turned around and smiled at him, thanking him with her eyes in a way he was sure words couldn't match.

 

"I'm out of fuel," he said eventually, breaking the silence they had maintained since her arrival.

 

She didn't even bat an eye as she took a plastic tube out of the side-bag on her Indian. She brought her bike close to his truck and sucked a bit on the tube until she could get some of her fuel into his truck; enough that it would get him to the gas station.

 

She coughed and spitted a bit, because of the unpleasant taste, and then washed her mouth with some water.

 

She climbed on the bike and donned her helmet. "See you later," she said just before firing her engine and driving down the road. He stared after her until he couldn't hear the sound of the roaring bike anymore, and then he climbed in his truck.

 

It had taken him nearly twenty years to finally come out of that prison and once again spring forward.


End file.
